“Let me be the judge of that,” he retorted with silky-smooth persuasion.
Tessa took a sip of the wine. It was silky-smooth, too, sweet, heavy with the taste of fruit, caressing her throat like liquid velvet. She suspected it was very heavy in alcohol content because even a taste of it sent an intoxicating buzz to her head.
“I don’t like being a bore, sir,” she said firmly, then took a smaller sip of the wine, testing its strength again. Liquid dynamite, she thought. But very, very nice. The slight chill on it made it all the more inviting, but she wasn’t going to fall into that trap.
“How do you like the wine?” Blaize asked.
She looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Oh, I’m managing to choke it down, sir.”
A flicker of outrage crossed his face, quickly followed by a dry, barely hidden contempt. “I will concede this isn’t the most expensive wine in the world. The 1801 Margaux does cost more. So, too, does the 1795 Madeira.” He twirled the wine around in his glass. “This is a mere ‘29 d’Yquem.”
“Is that a fact, sir?” Tessa said with arch interest.
He took a sip, rolling the wine around in his mouth before swallowing it. “That’s a fact,” he said with heavy irony.
“And does such an expensive wine help to fill the emptiness, sir?” she asked curiously.
His expression underwent a lightning change, wiped clear of any trace of irony or contempt. His eyes bored into hers with a piercing brightness that would not be denied anything he wanted to know.
“You are a tease, Miss Stockton,” he said softly.
“No, I am not, Mr. Callagan,” she returned, her eyes defying his judgement. Then she smiled. “Although I will concede it’s no hardship to choke down this wine. And I thank you for the privilege of tasting its unique quality. Such a luxury is not part of my ordinary life.”
She took another sip, her eyes still challenging his over the rim of her glass. He watched her for so long, she took another sip because his intense scrutiny had somehow made her mouth go dry. Quite unconsciously, her tongue flicked out to lick her lips.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, simmered there for several moments, then he took another swallow from his glass and placed it on the bedside table. He leaned over and took her glass out of her hand and placed it on her bedside table. Sheer unholy wickedness danced in his eyes as he slid her down on the pillows. Then his mouth mingled with hers, savouring the taste of the wine on her tongue, playing a slow erotic dance that was more intoxicating than the wine.
He dipped his fingers into her glass and anointed her breasts with the sweet sticky liquid. It didn’t stay there. And it didn’t stop there. He used the d’Yquem all over her body, making trails for his mouth to follow, filling her navel like a miniature cup for him to drink from, making the rich wine a scented aphrodisiac, which drew him on to taste all of her, and Tessa was totally lost in a world of incredible eroticism, inescapably enthralled by what he was doing to her. He wove a silken web of sensuality that held her totally captive, all the more so because it was done with such delicacy, tenderness, exquisite pleasure.
She closed her eyes and floated on a gentle sea of undulating sensation, feeling her body flow with different currents of excitement, some high, some low, but all mesmerising in their intensity. She was boneless, utterly limp when he finally slid inside her, and he moved her body gently around his, stirring even sweeter rivulets of pleasure.
“Open your eyes,” he commanded softly.
Tessa obeyed without thought, completely drawn into his will, his desire, his way. She had no idea what he saw in her eyes as he took his possession of her in slow deliberate strokes. He felt very deep inside her. He felt part of her. A necessary part. And she knew she would feel bereft when he left her.
She didn’t want it to end. When it did, the pleasure of feeling his life essence mingling with hers was shot through with the pain of knowing that it didn’t mean what it should. Another drop, that’s all it was... and she closed her eyes as tears welled into them and overflowed.
“No, no,” he murmured thickly, and gathered her up in his arms, holding her tightly to him as he rolled onto his side, cradling her against him, stroking her hair, trailing soft kisses around her temples. “Don’t cry. Don’t,” he pleaded.
But she couldn’t stop the tears from coming. Somehow the caring gentleness of his embrace made it harder, but she valiantly tried to stem the flow, knowing she was breaking the unspoken pact of an encounter.
“I’m... I’m tired. That’s all,” she choked out, desperately trying to explain away the ungovernable flood of desolate emotion.
He would never understand how wrong this was to her. That he should make her feel so possessed by him when he didn’t want to possess her, except for a few moments that might fill his emptiness. Somehow it was a worse betrayal than Grant’s, although she couldn’t accuse Blaize of dishonesty. Or infidelity. But it hurt. And she wished he hadn’t taken her like that. Wished he hadn’t made her feel so much. It wasn’t fair. Not when he meant nothing by it, apart from some brief gratification.
“Hush...it’s all right,” he murmured, turning onto his back, taking her with him so that she lay half-sprawled across his body.
He kept stroking her hair and her back in soft soothing caresses, and gradually Tessa was able to blink the tears back. The effort exhausted her, and she could not find the strength to move away from him. He didn’t seem to mind.
I mustn’t think about this, Tessa told herself. Better to blank out her mind. Just let it be. It was over. Already the past. He was only a warm body, in comfortable contact with hers. Her cheek was pressed over his heart, She listened to the deep heavy thud of it, let it fill the empty spaces she forced into her mind, and slowly there was nothing else left but the hypnotic thud of Blaize Callagan’s heart and the rhythmic strokes of soft fingertips on her back.
A deep languor seeped through her body. Drowsiness clouded her dulled mind. She fell asleep without any awareness of it descending upon her. She had no knowledge of Blaize Callagan gently shifting her onto a pillow, tucking bedclothes around her, softly smoothing her hair away from her face. No knowledge of him watching over her as he finished the bottle of d’Yquem alone. No knowledge that he walked out to the verandah of the cottage, looked up at the stars— cold taunting pinpoints of light in the bottomless pit of black sky—and in a fit of deep frustration, hurled the empty bottle into the night.